In later years, my parents would shake their heads sadly and wonder what they had been thinking when, in 1950, without a care, a clue, or a sou, they dragged me, age four, and my fifteen-month-old brother across the Atlantic. No normal people, unless facing imminent arrest, would even contemplate such madness. But my parents, the original innocents, went abroad in the sure and certain knowledge that things would work out. Amazingly, things did work out, after a fashion, and therein lies the story.
- from French Impressions.